President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, is set to be released by Friday afternoon, according to a federal judge’s order on Thursday.
What We Know:
- Judge Alvin Hellerstein found that Cohen was taken into custody on July 9th after retaliating over condition that he was not allowed to publish a book, about anyone, while he serves the rest of his three-year criminal sentence on home confinement. Cohen’s attorneys argued that the condition violated his First Amendment rights.
- In response to this allegations, the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement, “Any assertion that the decision to remand Michael Cohen to prison was a retaliatory action is patently false”.
BREAKING Judge Alvin Hellerstein says that Michael Cohen is to be be released by 2pm tomorrow from federal prison to his home in Manhattan for home confinement.
The judge says he found Cohen’s return to prison “retaliatory".
— Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) July 23, 2020
- Cohen previously pleaded guilty to multiple felonies in 2018, including fraud and campaign violations. Despite this, he was granted leave from the federal prison in Otisville, N.Y. in late May, over concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic. The former lawyer has a record of having multiple health issues that could prove detrimental if combined with the coronavirus, stated his lawyers.
- According to the New York Times, apart from being released amid the pandemic, Cohen was asked to sign a document that would have prohibited him from publishing a book during the rest of his sentence. He was hesitant to sign due to the fact that he was actually writing a book, a revealing memoir about his former boss, Donald Trump.
- After Cohen sued this week to win his re-release from prison, Hellerstein stated at a Manhattan federal court hearing that, “I’ve never seen such a clause, in 21 years in being a judge and sentencing people”.
Cohen’s attorney, Danya Perry, implied this was a victory for the First Amendment in a statement. It showed that “the government cannot block a book critical of the president as a condition of release to home confinement. This principle transcends politics and we are gratified that the rule of law prevails,” she said.
